Ashes of Creation Apocalypse battle royale

In Apocalypse you have a scene where you have a squad in, or are solo or whatever. That scene will eventually become your house. Your freehold, exactly; and you will earn furniture to place in that freehold and you can build out your house and what-not through special achievements.[2] – Steven Sharif

Why did we go with Battle Royale as the first testable arena mode? And the answer for that is honestly, as we're testing and getting people into matches on our servers and testing the replication among players in a battlefield; and making sure that tech is present and capable for hundreds of players on the battlefield: We wanted to have a game mode that was still fun for players to test in: An environment that was fun to test in.[4] – Steven Sharif

It's going to have a lot of high octane energy and activity. It's going to be very streamable. It's going to be no NDA. There's going to be a lot of different weapons and skills that were going to be testing. Each of the weapons and armor that you can find in the world are going to have unique spells and skills associated with them that interact with the terrain from a defensive standpoint, from a utility standpoint, from an offensive standpoint. It's going to be able for you to build buildings, complete structures, watchtowers and defensive pillboxes type structures: Arcane structures. You're going to have a lot of fun activity there.[8] – Steven Sharif

Long before your character steps foot into the MMORPG world of Verra, your ancestors inhabited the enchanted woods of the great Pyrian Forest of Erinthia. These lands have flourished and long been the home of the Kingdom of Pyria under the rule of Eridelle. The great Forest of Erinthia is vast and borders many non-Pyrian settlements, including some human settlements.[11]

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse

The standalone prequel to the upcoming epic MMORPG Ashes of Creation - both a testing ground for new systems and content, as well as a unique last-man-standing action game where magic, steel, and chaos reign supreme in a high fantasy, free-to-play experience.[14]

There will be aim down sights. You may have seen it that you can aim down sights on weapons; and there will be scopes on like crossbows and stuff that - arcane scopes - that you can use.[39] – Steven Sharif

Some spells do have ADS. There's a long-range meteor blast that can be used from one of the spell books; and that has an arcane zoom in. It lets you zoom into a target.[40] – Steven Sharif

Headshot mechanics

If headshots are implemented, they will be along the lines of a higher critical chance.[44]

The idea behind headshot in the MMORPG is that, if we do implement headshots - part of this testing is to determine if we will - but if we were to implement headshots it will be along the lines of a higher critical chance. So basically hitting a skillshot on the head will increase significantly the opportunity for that damage to be critical. Will they one-shot? Absolutely not.[44] – Steven Sharif

Players using action-based skills are going to rely on getting a head shot or hitting a critical spot on the opponent.[45]

So if you take a look at like kind of what a head shot represents: A head shot is basically a critical hit; and players who are relying on tab skills will have that critical hit chance baked into their character. They will have that fixed chance every time they use an ability or use a spell or swing a weapon; and then somebody who is kind of preferring you know action based, in order to get that crit, they're not gonna be relying necessarily on their stats they're gonna be relying on whether they get a headshot or not, or are able to hit that critical spot on that character. So that's kind of the direction that we're going in that way. Again, it's gonna be hybridized so there's gonna be a little bit of both happening in both places.[45] – Jeffrey Bard

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse combat animations

The follow-through on some of the root animations and attacks feel a little floaty. A little sticky, yeah. So we are adjusting that as it is. Over the past month we've also seen feedback on the hitscan related to melee weapons and we've adjusted that into a cone.[47] – Steven Sharif

You're going to have an adventuring path and that adventuring path is going to come with weekly quests and daily quests that you can participate in that will be available for the Castle sieges for the Horde and for the Battle Royale; and as you complete these quests you're going to gain experience; and right now you have up to 50 levels, which matches the intended cap for Ashes of Creation. Fifty levels of the adventure path that you can advance in; and as you advance in each of these levels you're going to be unlocking certain assets, such as these weapon skins. Now the great thing about player's progress in Apocalypse is that you will share the same account from Apocalypse to Ashes of Creation the MMORPG and anything that you earn in Apocalypse will be in Ashes of Creation the MMORPG- a unique as a skin exactly: A skin that you will have access to for helping us test write Apocalypse and preparing these different Alpha and Beta stages for Ashes of Creation.[54] – Steven Sharif

Ashes of Creation Apocalypse lore

This lobby area where you see players load into- this is unfinished- but this will be one of the capital cities that you are about to enter through the great divine gateways... You're trying to flee; and in this particular game mode you are a part of some unlucky few who didn't quite make it out. And unfortunately after entering the great divine gateway fell back to the planet.[55] – Steven Sharif

The last stand against the forces of corruption takes place in the horde mode.[56]

Initially you're playing the Battle Royale you're a part of the last group of survivors to try to leave Verra. And as you're leaving you get cut off. The slipstream ends and you start falling back to the planet. Now the activities that occur and the fighting amongst yourselves is a result of the influence of corruption: Corrupting your soul basically; and as we move into the Castle Siege mode that's where you see the survivors now trying to seek refuge in some of the last defendable bastions of of society. So you're kind of fighting over those for your families and your friends to get into that keep to try to ride out the storm so to say; and that's what the Castle Siege is predicated on. Then moving into the Hordes is this is now the final showdown. How long can you last? And that's kind of the narrative behind Apocalypse as a whole.[52] – Steven Sharif

Chapter 1 is called The Exodus. It takes part in the initial stages of the fall and sets the scene for upcoming chapters.[52]

What happened before you came back? What did your ancestors have to go through? What did these civilizations have to endure? ... You get to experience the world of Ashes of Creation. You get to take a peek under the hood of the art assets and the style that that art will be when you play the game; and at the same time while you're doing all of that and we're hitting the servers with as many people as possible, we are continuing production and implementing new art; and we are updating those those chapters of this story; and that's what each season so speak is called for us is a chapter. In fact the first chapter of Apocalypse will be titled the Exodus. So chapter one is the Exodus and players will have an opportunity to earn unique rewards in each chapter. So that chapter's period of time is roughly ten weeks- between eight and twelve. We'll see how those go, but right now it's set for ten weeks; and every ten weeks you're going to see an introduction of new content.[52] – Steven Sharif

One of the ways we want to give back to the Community in participating in this testing is allowing for progress, quests, achievements rewards to be gained in Apocalypse... You will have rewards and quests and achievements that you and your participation and your performance in that game, whether it be the Castle Siege, the Horde Mode or the Battle Royale will earn you cosmetics. There will be costumes. There will be mounts to earn. There will be housing and furniture. There will be emotes. There will be weapon variants. A lot of these are what we have in production for our project Ashes of Creation, we apply some variants and skins for and make them only available through participating in helping us test these different game modes. And they will carry over to your account on the MMORPG.[16] – Steven Sharif

The account used for Apocalypse is the same account used for the MMORPG. Unique skins earned in Apocalypse will be added to the MMORPG as rewards for helping to prepare for the Alpha and Beta stages of Ashes of Creation.[54]

Skins earned in Apocalypse will be available to apply at certain tiers, levels and/or access points within the MMORPG.[68]

So it's not that you'll be able to equip necessarily an item at level one. These are all cosmetic skins. Again we are not about the pay-to-win or pay-to-convenience life. What we want to do instead is as you earn, craft, or find equipment in the MMORPG, these skins that you've earned in Apocalypse will be available at certain tiers, levels and/or access points. So for example, we have different grades of mounts right. We have the base one land mounts. We have the the Royal mounts. We have the flying mounts if you're a mayor or King or Queen. We have legendary mounts. These classes of mounts will have available skins associated with those particular classes... If you have the Ramstider skin that you've earned from Apocalypse, you'll be able to apply that to your first land mount, which will probably be earned within the first five levels you'll earn a land mount. However if you have let's say for example the Gryphon, which will be a glideable mount. I'm sorry what's the name of the what's the name of the night one. The midnight- is the midnight bird or something like? The Nighthunter Gryphon. I think that's it. If you have that skin you'll only be able to apply that skin to a Royal mount so you'll still have to earn these things. Remember our position is that of: You need to earn these things in Ashes first. They're not purchasable or earned outside in Apocalypse and you're granted that immediately. These are skins that you apply to the things you earn in Ashes.[68] – Steven Sharif

One thing that we announced to our alpha one backers that I know they love clarity on is that we'll also be including progression and experience tracking for participation and testing that will entitle them to some unique cosmetics as well that reflect on the lore of this setting, which is before the fall. So you'll be able to acquire some armors that reflect some of the ancient cultures of Verra that you will earn and hold for live launch.[66] – Steven Sharif

Weapons are tied to one specific skill in early testing, but this may change.[73]

Weapons will have skills associated with them and they'll will rest on a hot bar and you can swap between the weapons on the hot bar and that'll allow you to access the different skills. Additionally the breastplate, the leggings: Those also have skills associated with them those are more utility and defensive abilities, such as like camouflage, polymorph, battlefield wall; that kind of stuff. Those are on the armor pieces and then they are associated with right now the VC hotkeys for their abilities.[72] – Steven Sharif

Right now weapons are tied to one specific skill; and you know that's just again because we're so early in alpha 1; but well probably be changing that as we continue to iterate and test.[72] – Steven Sharif

For the duration of this stance, you will take cover behind your shield's enhanced protection and reduce the damage of incoming attacks. Consumes 3 Stamina per second, and each attack performed with the shied readied consumes 15 additional stamina.[93]

Duration: 4 sec

Cooldown: 10 sec

For the duration of this stance, you will take cover behind your shield's enhanced protection and reduce the damage of incoming attacks. Consumes 3 Stamina per second, and each attack performed with the shied readied consumes 15 additional stamina.[94]

Duration: 5 sec

Cooldown: 10 sec

For the duration of this stance, you will take cover behind your shield's enhanced protection and reduce the damage of incoming attacks. Consumes 3 Stamina per second, and each attack performed with the shied readied consumes 15 additional stamina.[95]

What you're seeing currently in the Battle Royale feature of Apocalypse is you find armor and that gives you an armor pool and then you can regenerate your armor. What we're going to be experiencing in the castle siege form is each class will have a set amount of armor that they join the match with that's already full and a set amount of health that's already full. Upon losing armor you can either have your armor replenished by an Engineer or there there may be ability for you to find items that are in the world or there could be objectives that replenish armor for the entire team, such as one of the buffs for taking a control point.[121] – Steven Sharif

Modular armor

You can kind of start to see like some of the components that we put together that we can mix and match and kind of make new armors from. This is kind of like the base chassis for all of that.[146] – Jeffrey Bard

This is what we call our t-shirt and pants. So this gives you a perfect example of just how the most basic you'll ever look in alpha. So even our most basic look, we're really trying to bring it and put a lot of detail in it.[147] – Mat Broome

Your base look for the character can be pretty boring, but what Steven gave us a challenge with from day one was to make sure even the base look, the t-shirt and pants, looked amazing... This is your zero character, if you will... Then you can go in and customize everything from the shoulder pads to the elbow pads, the belt that goes around them; do you want duel belts, you want to harness the clothes in the front. So every piece you see on here you can actually customize that at the front end. So what we do is we scale that up from zero, ten and twenty... We scale it up and we customize it; and then I want to really stress that each one of those looks as you progress is different. We're not just repurposing the same armor pieces. We're making unique sets that complement each other as you progress.[146] – Mat Broome

You can actually have three different types of themes: You have plate, you'll have leather and you'll have robe. So for every armor set that we're showing at each one of those tiers, you're actually gonna have nine unique looks to pick from.[147] – Mat Broome

The idea behind our hybrid system is going to obviously be customizable from a traditional higher up third-person view that is seen in MMORPGs; and then to have that customizable so that more action-oriented players might be able to come in closer to the character and have more feasibility there.[160] – Steven Sharif